Speaker 1: Hello, I'm welcomed stories all the time. Glad you are here.
Let's get into it. My uncle Ben ran this old
self storage place out near Kessler, New Jersey, just past
the band on one hundred forty seven. His facility was
touched behind a line of overgrown pined and a rusted
chinneling fence with the gate that janned if he closed
it too fast. Then had been running that place for years.
I used to help him once in a while when
I was younger, changing locks, cleaving out abandoned units, spraying
for spiders when the exterminated into so when he called
me one evening and asked if I could cover the
night shifts for a couple weeks while he recovered from
shoulder surgery, I said sure. He said he'd pay me
in cash. He'd be easy to stay awake, log anyone
who came in after hours and make sure the place
didn't catch fire. I was between jobs at the time,
trying to figure out what the hell I wanted to
do next, so the timing worked out. Plus I figured
it might be nice to have some quiet time to myself.
I brought books, my laptop, snacks, thought it'd be kind
of peaceful. The office itself looked like it hadn't changed
since nineteen ninety six. Beige everything, dust to fake plant
in the corner, a filing cabinet that stuck when you
opened it. The heater was ancient and I swear a
cough when it turned on. But there was a desk,
an old coffee pot, and a little monitor set up
that show each row of units. The lot had above
fifty units total, spread across two long rows, with a
single motion light above each door. Most of them were
vacant or hadn't been opened in years. The first two
nights were uneventful. I stayed in the office, streamed some
old episodes of Mythbustows, and drank way too much coffee
from my thermos. The air at there was dry and
sharp at night, and the silence hit different. Not peaceful exactly,
just empty, the kind of quiet that makes you notice
how loud your own breathing is. Then came the third night.
It was around two point thirty in the morning. I'd
just finished a lukewarm cup of gas station chili and
was debating if I could take a nap without technically
breaking the rules. That's when I noticed the light on
the monitor. It wasn't just flickering, it was fully on
Unit forty two. That one always stood out to me
because it had its own interior light. None of the
others did not like that, just a long fluorescent strip
bolted to the ceiling. I checked the gatelocks, no entries,
no one had come in. Still. I threw on my jacket,
grabbed the flask light, and headed out. The air was freezing.
Each step crunched hard against the gravel, like walking on
broken glass. My flashlight beam jumped across the rows of units,
catching rustum peeling paint whenever. Each forty two the door
was cracked open, just enough to see lights pulling out
from inside. Polissy said that if a door was open,
I had to investigate and document it. So I called
up twice and waited nothing. I pulled the door open
the rest of the way. The fluorescent light buzz above
me like it was struggling to stay alive. The unit
was full of the usual junk boxes with torn labels,
a treadmill with one handle missing, a cracked rub maybin.
But there was something else in the back lean carefully
against the wall was a huge mirror seven feet at
least with this thick carved frame that looked like something
from an old state sail. The wood had these culling
vine like patterns, and it looked weirdly pristine. No dust,
no nicks, not even any finger prints. The glass was
even stranger, perfectly clean. It didn't match the rest of
the unit at all, which looked like it hadn't been
touched in a decade. I stepped closer, mostly just curious,
I guess I expected to see myself looking tired and cold.
But the second I got up closed, something felt long.
It was my reflection. Yeah, same close, same stance, but
my chest was moving. My reflection was breathing rapidly, like
it had just sprinted across the lot. I wasn't moving.
I froze and just watched it for a few seconds,
my hand slowly dropping away from the flashlight. Then it stopped,
just stilled back to normal. I backed out of the
unit without another word, pulled the door shut hard, and
locked it back in the office. I cold Ben. It
was almost three in the morning, and he answered sounding
half asleep. When I told him what I saw. He
didn't even pretend to be surprised, just said, don't go
back in there. That unit's been strange for years. I
should have warned you that was it. No explanation, No,
you're seeing things, or maybe it was a trick of
a light, just a warning, like he'd been waiting for
this call. The next night, I tried to ignore it.
I even flipped the monitor off and kept the blinds closed.
I figured if I didn't see anything, I wouldn't have
to deal with it. But around one point forty five,
the monitor flickered on by itself, just static for a
few seconds, then a clear image. The door to uniforty
two rolled open again. I stared at it for way
too long before grabbing the flashlight. I don't know what
I thought I was going to do, show weigh a
ghost reason with the mirror. The unit was empty, no light,
no boxes, no mirror, just cold concrete in the soft
echo of my own footsteps. I turned to head back in.
That's when I saw something move in the reflection of
another unit's door, just a blow, like someone ducking behind me.
But when I spun around, nothing was there. I run
back to the office and slammed the door shut behind me.
My hands wouldn't stop shaking. I kept telling myself it
was distress, just imagination. Then around four in the morning
came the knocking maw on the door. On the back window.
There's an arrow window behind the desk that faces the
gravel lot. I hadn't looked at it all night. I
moved toward it slow hart pounding so loud it drowned
out the heater. When I peeked through the blinds, my
legs almost gave out. The mirror was back popped up
against the outside of the glass, facing in the reflection,
staring at me. Wasn't moving, wasn't blinking. The eyes were wide,
just a little too wide, like someone trying to fake
what normal looks like. I didn't move, I couldn't. Eventually
the sun started to rise, and just like that, the
mirror was gone. I left the keys in the counter
that morning, didn't even leave a note. I just got
in my car and drove home. Two weeks later, Ben's
wife called. He died in his sleep, stroke, they said,
but she mentioned something odd. When they found him, he
was upright in bed, eyes opened, looking like heap in
frozen midfall. There was a shoud of glass in his hand,
blood dried around his fingers. Nothing came out after investigation,
they said it was a natural death. Back then, I
was working nights at the Bellman Theater Downtown. The front
looked nice, marble floors, shiny brass fixtures, all restored to
the slightly over the top version of its nineteen forteself.
I was the overnight supervisor for the cleaner crew ten
p m. To six a m. One Thursday night in
early March, two of the regular cleaners, Marcel and Jina,
called out. I remember because they always brought coffee on
break and I missed it. With them gone, I had
to cover their rounds up stairs. It was one of
those nights where everything felt slightly off kilter. The upper
levels of the theater were always strange. The echoes up
there did something word like you'd hear footztet the second
after Dy moved of Voices would bounce in ways that
made you pause and listen, but I'd gotten used to it.
Around midnight, I was in one of the supply rooms
off the second floor, whole log and cleaning supplies. I
had my tablet open, checking off what we had left,
paper towels to grease her to toilet paper. That's when
I noticed the red binder. It was just sitting there
on top of the mop sink, plain red, slightly frayed
at the corners. We didn't use physical binders. Everything was
tracked online. I thought maybe someone left an old oc
of behind, but I couldn't remember ever seeing it there
before I opened it. The first page was labeled stage
left storage oar cave in thick black pen, underneath the
list of inventory boxes, props, lighting, gels, cables, all handrton.
I frowned. That section had been sealed since long before
I started. Management said the stairs were unsable. No one
went down there. I closed it and figured it was
just some wid left over from an old inventory, marked
it as found, tucked it under my arm and brought
it back to the front office. I locked it inside
the cabinet under the desk, double lock actually, and wrote
the time down in my shift notes. About an hour
or later, I was doing another sweep, and when I
passed the same supply room, I saw it again, sitting
on the exact same shelf, exact same angle. The office
was still locked. I didn't even try to come up
with an explanation that made sense. I just stared at
it for a bit, then picked it up again. And
walked straight back. This time I placed it under the
front deskamera, right in the middle of the frame, so
I could catch anything that happened to me. Fifteen minutes
later I checked the footage. It was there. I don't
mean someone moved it. I mean it just wasn't visible
in the footage. One frame it was sitting there, the
next on like it skipped over the part where it
should have existed. I went back up to the supply room.
There it was again. I didn't touch it this time,
just stood there for a few minutes, then left. I
didn't even write it down in the log. What would
I write? Later that night, I walked the upper hallway
to lock up the restrooms. I passed the usual row
of dressing rooms in service closets, and just as I
reached the bainn neard the back staircase, I saw one
door slightly open. It had a small plaque before a lounge.
That area wasn't restored yet. The walls back there were
still water stained. As far as I knew, no one
had been in there in years. Only one key existed
for me. I pushed it open. The air was colder
than the rest of the floor. I remember the way
it hit me. Not like a sea cold, but still sharp,
like the kind of cold you feel on your gums
when you bite into eyes. The room was mostly empty.
A row of vanity mirrors lined one wall. Most of
the bold's cracked are missing, thus clung to everything. A
few steels sat scattered across the space, one knocked over.
There was a folding dressing screen in the corner with
a long tew in the fabric, and in the middle
of the room the binder. It was lying open, this
time a different page. The handwriting looked the same, but
the heading had changed. This one said entries beneath it
five names first and last, no dates, no job titles.
I only recognize one of them. Mine next to it,
written in small capital letters, filed. I closed the door
and left the building without saying a word to any one.
The next night I called and sick send a half
heart attackt about a migraine, and stared at my phone
in the rest of the night, waiting for some response. Nothing.
Sleep well, kept thinking I was hearing the soft kind
of pipes and movement upstairs. By the following evening, I
felt ridiculous, told myself I was being dramatic, probably a
prank or some way left of her from a past employee.
I decided to finish the week and quick properly. Everything
seemed normal at first, until I went back to that
mop room. The binder was in the sync, this time closed.
It wasn't just sitting there casually to either. It looked
like it had been dropped hard, one edge hanging into
the drain, like it wanted to slip away. I opened it.
The names were gone. There was just one short paragraph
in the center of the page, under the heading returned Directive.
The handwriting was different, now, shaky and small, like someone
was writing in a hurry. The ink was darker, too,
blared into the paper. It we rehearsal and complete proceed
a green room. We didn't have a green room. I
pulled up the floor plan on my tablet. No such
label anywhere. But even as I told myself that, I
started walking down the hallway behind the stage pass the
orchestra pit entrance. Everything felt tight, like the walls had
shifted slightly closer. Then I saw a door I'd never
paid much attention to, unlabeled, set into the wall like
a fire exito storage. I sooned it led to electrical systems.
I tried the knob. It opened stairs, led downward. The
air was stale and warmer than upstairs, but there was
light at the bottom, one single bolb swinging slightly, making
this soft almost imperceptible. Hum. I heard a piano, not
a recording, a real piano, just a few notes, played slowly,
like someone rehearsing scales, without much enthusiasm. I stood there,
not breathing, for maybe thirty seconds. Then I shut the
door and locked it in the hallway. I pulled out
my phone and tied her resignation email right then and
there no notice. I didn't even read it over, just
hits and I turned around ready to get out, and
the binder was on the floor behind me. I didn't
even hesitate, picked it up, walked at the main doors,
crossed the street, and left it on a bench outside
the little Sound which shop across from the lot. I
drove home, didn't turn on the radio, didn't stop for gas,
just white knuckled the wheel all the way. At the time,
I worked for a property services company based in southern Indiana.
Our job was simple, haul out whatever was left, document
the condition, take photos, and pret the place for a
locksmith own spector. That Thursday I got sent to a
single story brick house outside a small town called Ashield.
It sat at the end of a long wooded road
with no sidewalk and barely any cell service. I'd never
been down that stretch before. The property had apparently been
untouched for over half a year. No electricity, no running water,
just a houseful of whatever the previous ownerkunt or wouldn't
take with them. When I pulled up, the driveway was
cracked a mossy and the mail box was hanging by
one screw. The grass had grown into stiff yellow stalks
that crunched underfoot. Nothing felt particularly spooky or out of place.
Just another dead house on another forgotten road. I growled
my gloves, flask, light, crowbar and clipboard from the track,
ran through the checklist in my head, and hurried up
to the porch. The front door was already on un locked,
which wasn't that where sometimes the bank sent out a
locksmouth ahead of time. Still something about it bugged me.
The door frame looked slightly warped like the wood and
shifted sideways a bit. Even though there wasn't any visible damage.
It was like the house itself that leaned away from
the door at some point and never quite settled back.
I made a mental note and pushed it open. The
air inside was danse, not stinky, just still dry in
a moving like a cross base of seal basement. You
know that muffled silence he get when nothing's being disturbed
for a while. That was the first thing I noticed.
Even my footsteps felt quieter than usual. The furniture was
all gone, except for some thick bundles of newspapers stacked
neatly in the living room, tied with twine. I checked
the top copy out of Habit The date was over
five years old. That felt strange, even for a foreclosure.
I started in the usual way, checked the front rooms,
photographed the walls, looked for a water damage. One bedroom
was empty, Another had a few broken hangers on the
floor in some mald spots near the window. Nothing stood
out until I got to the third room, which had
clearly been used to some kind of home office. That's
where it got weird. The walls were lined with shelves,
and the shelves were filled wall to wall with food cans.
Every single one had the label removed, just plain silver cans,
most of them lightly rusted around the rooms. They were
organized carefully by size, tall ones in the left, smaller
ones stacked in pyramids. There had to be hundreds of them.
Not a single label left behind. On the desks had
a rotary phone, one of the old Base models from
the seventies, completely unplugged. There wasn't even a phone jack
on that side of the room. Next to it was
a thick closed ledger book with a cloth cover written
across the top and black ink was a single word hail,
no title, no dress, just that name. I left it alone.
At first. I went through the closet, moved some dusty
file boxes, checked behind a door for any outlets. Nothing unusual.
But when I turned back to the desk, the phone
was off the hook, just lying there on the wood,
with the cold cord stretched out, like someone had picked
it up and set it down gently. I stood still
for moment. Then I said out loud, okay, not funny.
Sometimes I talked to myself on jobs, not like full
on conversations, just quick things to stay grounded. It's easier
to feel like the one in control when your voice
is there only one you hear. I picked up the receiver,
half expecting it to be dead. But there was this
slow hum, faint but steady. Not static, No static, more
like the vibration you get near an old power line
or a giant transformer. There was no electricity in the house.
I confirmed it before I walked in. I set the
phone back in the cradle a little harder than I
meant to. I stepped back out into the hallway. Half
Way down was a caloset door I had passed earlier.
It had been shut. Now it was cracked open about
foot and light was spilling out from its side. I
stopped walking. There was no power, no light should be on,
but through the crack I could see the unmistakable yellow
glow of a single bulb. I pushed the door open
all the way. Inside was a small utility closet, empty
except for a folded lawn chair in the center of
the floor. It was positioned to face the back wall.
Directly on that wall ride an in thick pencil. In
uneven lines were the words I remember who left. I
didn't go inside, I didn't touch anything. I just closed
the door slowly and walked away. Back in the office,
I finally opened the ledger to first dozen pages were
lists of initials and dates. Every name was much for
the single diagonal slashed through it like a running tally.
But about half way through the book the pattern changed.
The entries turned into frazes. Front door, twise, cabinet, twelve, bedroom, blanket, off,
and then the last one. See if they notice. I
closed the book, carried it out to the living room,
and placed it on top of the box I was
collecting with other removables. That's when I noticed the newspapers.
They weren't in stacks any more. They'd been rearranged, laid
out in a circle on the floor evenly space, each
bundle pointing toward the center like spokes on a wheel.
I hadn't heard anything, nothing had moved. Well, I was
in the other room, but I swear to you they
went't like that ten minutes earlier. That was it for me.
I loaded what I had into the truck, left the
checklist half filled in the passenger's seat, and got ready
to leave. But as I reached for the keys, I
realized I had left my flat light inside. I saw it,
cursed under my breath, then walked back up to the porch.
The front door was wide open. I know I shut it.
I always shut it. It's part of the routine muscle memory,
one of the small habits you don't even think about
until it gets interrupted. I stepped back inside it, keeping
my foots. That's quiet. This time. I went straight to
the office. My flashlight was sitting on the desk, but
the phone was gone. Then I heard it. That's soft,
deliberate cooking sound, A rotary dial being turned one number
at a time, so well mechanical, coming from the bedroom
across the hall. I didn't want to go, but I
took a step, then another, and I looked. Nothing in
the room had changed, except now the rotary foham was
sitting on the carpet right in the middle of the floor,
still and plugged. The receiver was resting in a cradle.
The sound had stopped. On the window of the bed.
Drawn backward. In the condensation were the same five words
I remember. Who left? I turned round, walked straight out.
No running, no panic, just a very control, very steady walk.
I got in a truck, locked the doors and didn't
stop driving until I was back in town. Two days later.
My manager called to ask why I hadn't completed the checklist.
I told him the foundation was unstable and I had
a migraine. He didn't press it, just reassigned the job.
I was twenty seven when I moved into the basement
unit off Harwood Street, just outside of Rochester, not far
from an old church, in a sketchy looking tire shop
with a busted neon sign that flickered even during the day.
I didn't love the area, but the rent was low,
and more importantly, I didn't need to put down three
months to pass it, which felt like a miracle at
the time. The house was a red brick split level
with the front porch that looked like it had been
sagging since the nineties. My place was the basement unit.
It had its unsided entrance, which felt like a bonus
at the time, more privacy. There was also a locked
door that connected to the main house. It led to
a narrow staircase up to Vince's place. We both had
locks on outside, but the stairs were still there, just
sitting behind a hollow corridor, like a weird little passage
nobody used. I could hear Vince walking around up there.
Sometimes he wore heavy boots, and occasionally I'd hear coughing
late at night, the guy sounded like he'd smoked a
chimneysworth in his life. The first time I noticed the
cold patch was maybe a week after I moved in.
I was doing laundry and stepped barefoot on to something
that felt wrong. Not wear it, not soft, just cold,
like freezer cold. A single dinner plate size patch of
concrete ride in the middle of the laundry room. For
it didn't look any different than the rest of the floor,
but every time I stood on it, even in socks,
I felt this deep, metallic cho sheet up my leg.
I started stepping around it just out of instinct. I
didn't even question it at first. You know how your
body just sort of avoids stuff that feels off. It
was like that. By mid January, things got approval. Outside
Rochester winters don't mess around, and this one came with
single digits in that sharp, dry air that bites your skin.
I kept a little space heater running in the bedroom
at night, mostly to stay sane, but even then i'd
wake up in the mornings and see my breath in
the air. The heater was working, it just wasn't enough.
The place felt like it was trying to freeze me out.
The night had happened. I'd gone to bed early, I remember,
because I'd fallen asleep watching something dumb on my laptop,
and when I woke up, everything was off, the heater,
the power, total silence. Now, silence doesn't usually feel like
a thing, right, but in that beastment, with the heater
always humming and the occasional thud from upstairs, it was
the kind of silence that hits you in the chest, thick, unnatural.
I reached over to flick on my bedside lamp. Nothing tried.
The main light switch also dead. Okay, power outage, I thought, annoying,
but not the end of the world. I got up,
mostly because I wanted my inhaler cold there and no
ventilation wasn't a great combo for my asthma. I always
kept the inhaler on the corner of my dresser habit,
but when I reached for it, my hand landed on smooth, emptywood.
An I checked the floor, looked behind the lamp, pulled
the drawer open in case i'd knocked it in my
misas nothing, and then I looked toward the window. That
tiny basement window always had just enough light from the
porch bulb to outline the edges. It wasn't much, but
it let me know the outside world was still there
that night, though the glass look completely black, not dim,
not shadowed, just gone light. The window had disappeared or
been painted over. I leaned a little closer, trying to
figure out if maybe the light bulb had burned out.
And that's when I heard it right behind me, a
man's voice, calm and close. You're not breathing. I jumped
and spun around. My whole body went cold. There was
no one there but my chest. God, my chest was tight.
My foot felt like some one was sowly pressing it closed.
I couldn't get a full breath in. Ye know when
you suck for a stroll with a crack in it
and nothing comes up. It felt like that, but in
my lungs. I stumbled, dropped to my knees, tried to
crawl toward my phone. It was charging across the room, screen,
glowing faintly in the dark. My fingers barely worked. I
got maybe halfway there before my vision narrowed and the
four came rushing up to meet me. And then nothing, nothing,
just blank. When I came to I wasn't in the
bedroom any more. I was on the stairs, those lock
stairs to Vince's place. My head was resting against the
bottom step, and my phone was in my hand, unlocked,
emergency dial, screen open. I didn't remember walking there. I
didn't remember getting up at all. I definitely didn't remember
unlocking the door. I blinked a few times. My chest
still felt like it was full sand. Then I looked up.
There was some one standing on the landing above me.
Not Vince. This guy was younger, midman, as third as,
maybe shaggy hair, faded Bill's hoody, just standing there watching.
Except he wasn't watching. He wasn't even facing me exactly.
His head was tilted don like he was looking at
the stairs, but his eyes never met mine. And then,
without turning, he stepped backward, smooth and slow, like he
was moving on rails, and disappeared into the shadows at
the top of the staircase. That was it. Next thing
I remember, I was in the hospital, tubes in my nose,
some one adjusting monitors beside me. Vince had found me
passed out against the door, barely breathing, and called an ambulance.
It was three point thirty in the morning at the hospital.
They told me it was a chemical reaction, severe respiratory inflammation,
like an allergic attack, but worse. They asked if I'd
been exposed to insulation celants, rubber fumes, stuff like that.
I told them no, but Vince filled in the blanks later.
I was twenty eight when I took a night job
at a small roadside hotel just outside a town called
ry Hill Pines. A hotel wasn't part of any chain,
just one of those squat, single story buildings with twenty
rooms in a U shape around a gravel parking lot.
Half the rooms had burnt out porch bulbs. The sign
out front used to say Cumberland Lodge, but most of
the letters had peeled off, so it just said come low.
The locals thought that was funny. I did two the
first week. I worked the overnight shift ten to six,
no other staff. The owner lived in New Jersey and
came up once a month to breed heavily over the
books and change the filter in the ice machine. The
manager lived a iro away and only showed up if
something broke. That Meanta had the place to myself. Most
nights were uneventful. I'd set at the desk in a
tiny front office, drinking terrible coffee and watching muded crimes
shows on that he v bolted to the wall. The
vending machine would hum in the background like it was
trying to fall asleep, and every so often a tired
truck or guard on a business trip would roll in,
bleary eyed and grateful. I'd hand over one of those
fat brass keys and point them down the whole way
like a concierge in purgatory. I liked to quiet. Honestly,
after years of bouncing between dead end retail jobs and
tent gigs with florescent lighting and four small talk, sitting
alone in a slightly musty room didn't feel like the
worst thing. There was a kind of peace in knowing
that nothing much was expected of me. That night didn't
start off feeling different. The wind had picked up around midnight,
not a storm exactly, but the kind of ry gusts
that make the leaves shuffle round like their looking for something.
The lobby door was one of those old automatic sliding types,
the kind that operates like its on its last legs.
Every time the wind blew across the center, it would
drag itself open an inch or two, make dis exhausted
mechanical wheaz and thence snap shut like it was offended.
It was annoying, but not unusual. I even laughed at
it once or twice, like yeah, budeed, I feel that too.
Round two in the morning, I was wrapping up the audit,
everything balanced. I shut the registered drawer with a satisfying
little snap, stretched my back and was just reaching for
the light switch behind the desk when the front door
side opened again. I looked up nothing. The parking lot
outside was still, no headlights, no sil wits, no sign
of movement. Then the door slid shut with a soft hiss.
I figured it was the wind again, but I walked
over to check anyway, habit I guess. I pressed my
hand against the glass and looked out empty. Just my
beat up grolla sitting alone under the flickering security light,
casting a nervous little shadow on the gravel. No fresh
tire tracks, no footprints, just that uneasy stillness where everything
looks normal but feels not. And then behind me something
hit the floor, a sharp metal thunk. I turned fast.
One of the room keys six was like just behind
the desk, a couple inches from the peg board were
it usually hung. The hook was still there, not bend
or anything. The key had just dropped all on its own.
They weren't light either. These were solid brass with thick
leather tags. They didn't just fall off for no reason. Still,
I picked it up, maybe a little too quickly, and
hung it back like that made things normal again. I
took one step back and another key fell. This time
it was eleven, and it didn't just drop straight down.
It bounced off the hook below. It clattered in the counter,
then hit the floor. That one. I didn't hang back up.
I just stared at a second and stepped away. The
lobby felt well, not cold, but thick charge charged like
there before a thunderclap were right after someone says something
unforgivable and the whole room forgets how to breathe. I
walked over to the door, flit the censer off and
locked it manually. Then I sat back, then behind the desk,
every hit on my arms, standing up, telling myself I
was of reacting. Then the phone run eternal line Room four.
I stared at the blinking extension for a second. No
one was in four had been vacant for over a week.
I'd even walked past it o that night. Door shut,
curtain pulled, same as always. I picked up slowly, front desk, nothing,
not even static, Hello, nothing, Then a click, just that.
I sat there for a moment, still holding the phone.
Then it rang again, Room nine. My stomach clenched. I
picked up, tried to sound board, front desk. Pause. Then
a voice, small, high pitched, definitely a child's voice. Are
you alone? I hung up that time. I didn't wait.
I told myself it was a glitch, that maybe the
phone system had crossed wires, that maybe some guest kid
had gotten hold of the receiver. But I already knew
none of the occupied rooms had kids in them. I
checked the check ins myself, two eight and twelve, all
solo travelers, all adults. I opened the system again and
double checked, same result. Still. I printed out the occupancy
report and stepped out from behind the desk. Good. I'd
warped the hale, confirmed nothing weird was going on. The
hallway was its usual self, thin brounk carpet buzzing overhead lights,
that faint cyrus mell of afreshner, trying to fight mildew
and losing. I knocked on Room four, nothin' same with nine.
Then I rounded the corner and everything stopped. Room six's
door was wide open, not half way, not cracked. White.
I pushed slowly, listening. The hallway was dead quiet. I
leaned in and flicked on the room light. Everything looked
and touched it perfectly made pimote still sitting on the
night stand. Nothing out of place, no bags, no guess,
no movement. But the bathroom light was on. The door
was shut. I stood there in the doorway, staring at it.
Every part of me was yelling to leave it alone,
but I couldn't. HULLO. I called, this is hotel staff.
If some one's in there, it are not supposed to
be nothing. I walked in, put my hand on the
knob and turned it slowly envy light buzzing from the fan,
no towels disturbed, no mirror fog, just an ordinary, very
empty bathroom. I turned off the light, left the room,
locked the door behind me, and made my way back
to the desk. When I got there, my stomach dropped.
Free keys were on the canber now four nine dix.
The hooks were empty. I hadn't taken them down. Then
the front door still locked clicked open on its own,
that dragging, breathy sound as it slid wide. I turned around.
There was a little girl standing just outside, barefoot, hair
matted like she'd been out in the wind for ires,
no coat, no parents. I stepped forward, heart in my throat, hey,
I said gently, are you okay? Are you lost? She
didn't answer, didn't even look at me, just stared down
the hallway. Then she said, very softly, I need to
go back to my room. What room is that? She
raised one arm slowly and pointed to the one where
I'd eyed. I didn't move. I couldn't. My legs felt
like sandbecks. She stepped inside without another word, walked right
past me. I washed her, leave wet foot prints across
the tiles. She headed down the hall. It hadn't rained
that broke me. I left, didn't even grab my phone,
just got in my car, heart hammering in my chest,
and drove until I saw lights at a gas station
ten miles down the road. I sat in the parking
lot for almost twenty minutes before I called the manager.
Told him something weird had happened and I couldn't finish
the shift. Didn't explain, he didn't ask He confirmed what
I already knew. No kids had been booked that night,
No families, just three adults. I never went back texted him.
Two days later in quit took a job at a
bookstore that only opens during the day. Months later I
got curious. I looked at the hotel. It had closed
that winter. The burst pipe had flooded half the rooms
never reopened. I found one old article about the shutdown,
just a short blurb, but buried near the bottom was
a line about a woman who had filed a lawsuit
year earlier after her daughter died during a weekend stay.
Cobb and Mynott Side leak Room six. Back when I
was twenty one, I was working the closing shift of
the snow Frills twenty four iro Jyms just outside Aldridge, Virginia.
The place was Coldridge Pinfinness, though that made it sound
fancier than it was. Most nights were uneventful. I'd vacuum
wipe things down, checked the bathrooms to make sure no
one fell asleep in a stall, then locked the doors
by midnight and head out easy enough. The jim sat
right up against this patch of woods. Everyone around town
called Ashfield timber Locals always had some story pets disappearing,
weird lights at night, don't go in the kind of stuff.
But that's just small town folklore. I'd park in the
side lot which faced those woods directly. At the end
of my shifts, I'd just cut across the back lot
with my keys and flashlight and go home. I didn't
think twice about it. That night started normal. Around ten,
there were just two people left, Rob, a regular who
did late night cardio, and this other guy I didn't recognize, young,
maybe seventeen or EDeAN. He wasn't working out, though, just
sitting on the stretching mats near the wall of mirrors,
cross legged, staring at his reflection like he was waiting
for it to move. I figured he was killing time,
maybe waiting for someone. But after a while I walked
over and asked if he needed anything. He didn't even
fully look at me, just said i'll leave soon, and
something about his voice stop me. It was flat, like
someone talking in their sleep, not slurred, just distant. I paused,
kind of watching him for a second, longer than I
probably needed to, then went back to the desk. By
ten point thirty, Rob had left, the kid hadn't moved.
Still sitting there facing the mirror, I cleave my throat
and let him know we were closing. He stood up, slowly,
walked straight past me, and left without another word. I
locked the door behind him, shut off the lights, did
my final sweep of the locker rooms. Everything looked fine.
But when I came back into the lobby, the little
red motion sense so near the entrance blinked once. That
usually only happens if someone walks by. I double checked
the doors, still locked, looked out onto the side what
completely empty. Figured it was just a clip htch. They
happened sometimes, humidity, perwasurges whatever. I shut everything down, grabbed
my back and stepped out the back. And that's when
I saw it. My cow's headlights were on, not bright,
just the dim setting, but they were definitely uncasting too long,
pale beams right into the trees. And here is the thing.
I never leave them on never. I've got this little
routine I follow every night like clockwork. Check the doors,
shut the lights, keys in my hand, then walk to
the car. I don't even touch the headlights, which it's automatic.
I stood there for a minute, just watching. No one
else was in the lot, No sounds, no signs of
anyone around. The car looked like it had just pulled in,
lights still humming faintly. I walked up slowly. Both doors
were shut. I glanced around, trying to convince myself this
was just me forgetting something, but it didn't feel like that.
I unlocked the door. The lights went off immediately, not faded,
snapped off like a breakout which had flipped. I got
in and started it. The engine came on, just fire.
Nothing felt ron except the domelight didn't turn on when
I opened the door, just darkness overhead, like the car
didn't want me to see inside. I backed up faster
than usual and pulled on to the road. Glanced in
the rear view as I left. There was someone standing
in the middle of the lot, same hoody, same stillness,
just standing there, but his head was tilted all the
way back, like he was stirring straight up into the sky,
not moving at all. I didn't stop, I didn't even
slow down, just kept driving and told myself I was tired,
that I probably imagined it. I didn't bring it up
to any one. How do you explain something like that
without sounding ridiculous. I chalked it up to stress and
went back the next night. Everything seemed normal, but that
mirror in the stretching area. It gave me a weird feeling.
At one point I saw a movement in it, just
for a second, a quick flicker, like someone walking behind me.
When I turned around, there was no one there. I
told myself it was my reflection, maybe a light catching weird.
Tried not to make a big deal out of it.
Then about a week later, I was in the locker
rooms cleaning when the front door chime went off. It's
a very distinct sound that can't miss. It only happens
when someone actually opens the front door, but it was locked,
always is. By then, I've rushed to the front, no
one there, pucking lot empty, the still off. I checked
the security feed and that's when I got goosebumps. The
camera footage cut out for exactly thirteen seconds, just before
the chime. Then it came back, showing me walking into frame, confused,
no one entering, no one leaving, just a missing chunk
of time. I brought it up to my manager the
next day. She brushed it off, said the cameras were
old that they cut out sometimes, told me not to worry.
I tried to believe her. But then a few nights
later I saw the kid again. He wasn't inside this time,
he was sitting across the parking lot on the curb,
just watching the front doors. Didn't move din Flinch, just
sat there like he'd been waiting. I called my coworker, Tony,
asked if he could pick me up. Left my car
behind that night. When I came back the next morning,
there were three deep scratches across the driver's side door.
Not like someone keyed it. These went straight. They were uneven, jagged,
almost like law marks. I told the manager I had
classes starting back up and couldn't see the late shift
any more. No one pushed back. A new guy took
over nights. Two weeks later I heard he quit without
giving notice. Someone said he saw a person standing in
the back hallway who wasn't supposed to be there. When
he went to check, no one was around, but everywhere
in the locker room had fogged up, like someone had
just breathed on them. Sometimes I dream about that mayor
of that kid. In the dream, his reflection still moves,
but he doesn't. The house had been empty for about
a year before I moved in, it was this old
two story farm house outside a little town in southern Indiana,
Cold Rinsey. I'd never lived anywhere that, but after the
break up, I'd just gone through. It sounded like a dream.
The rent was low, the landlord didn't ask many questions,
and I needed a rosset, some space to breathe. The
first two weeks were honestly. I got into routine, up
around eight, work through the morning, then walk the perimeter
of the fields in the afternoon. Sometimes I go down
to the crete that ran along the back of the
property and just sit with my coffee. I left the
windows open at night. The air was perfect, just that
early autumn coll crisp enough to feel fresh, but still
warm enough to sleep until a light blanket. I actually
started feeling okay again, like maybe this weird old house
in quiet town were exactly what I needed to get
back to myself. Then came the alarm clock. I kept
it on the floor next to the mattress, no nights,
and yet one morning I rolled over and saw it
blinking three point thirty three, not making noise, just blinking
like the power had cut for a second, except nothing
else had reset. A kitchen stove still showed the correct time,
so did my phone. No storms the night before, no wind,
no flickering lights. Weird but not worth spiraling over until
it happened again, and then again. Three nights in a row.
I woke up and the alarm was blinking three point
thirty three exactly, no more, no less. The fourth night
I got curious enough to do something about it. I
set up my phone to do a time lats and
left it pointed at the clock. When I checked it
in the morning, the video ran fine until three point
thirty two, then it just stopped. The last frame was
a mess, just grayves like the old static on a
broken BHS tape, and then nothing, no explanation. The file
wast even labeled as corrupted, just frozen. I washed it
three times like that was going to change something. Then
I deleted it and told myself I must have set
something up wrong. But then other things started to shift.
Just small stuff at first, like my keys. I always
put them on the little hook by the front door,
same place every day, but one morning they were laid
out on the kitchen counter, lined up in a straight row,
evenly spaced, like some one had measured it. Another time,
my shoes turned up on the back porch, dry clean,
perfectly play aside by side, like I just stepped out
of them b only I hadn't been outside the day before.
Little things, but they added up. I kept trying to
come up with explanations. Maybe I was sleep walking, maybe
I was so distracted that I didn't remember doing it myself.
Or maybe a raccoon had found its way in poor
a stray cat. But the doors were locked. Every night,
the windows were closed. I checked or checked. I even
started snapping photos of where I left things, just to
prove to myself I wasn't losing it. Then came the hoodie.
I'd fallen asleep on the couch again, a documentary playing
low in the background. I woke up around three. Felt
it before I knew it, a kind of cold that
makes your breath feel feel sharp in your throat. I
sat up, confused because the heat was on and all
the windows were shut tight. It wasn't just chilly, it
was wrong, like freezer air. I reach for the remote,
not on the table. I leaned down in something soft
brush against my foot. It was the remote, wrapped in
my old navy hoodie. I hadn't worn that hoodie in
over a week. It had been upstairs in a laundry
basket the last time I saw it. I dicked it
up and instantly regretted it. The whole lundlreaked like swamp water,
that slimey, algie heavy smell you get near the edge
of a stagnant pond, wet rotting vegetation, the kind of
smell that makes your skin crawl. I dropped it and
turned on every light in the house, but again nothing.
Everything else was right where I'd left it. The next morning,
I found long, pale smears across the floor near the sink.
Not quite footprints, not ham prints either, just lawn dragging marks,
wet fibrous, almost like something had been pulled across the wood.
I got paper towels and started scrubbing, without even thinking, Like,
if I clean fast enough, it wouldn't be real. I
told myself, maybe an animal garten through the crawl space.
That made more sense than any of the other thoughts
crawling around in the back of my brain. So I
drove to the hardware store, bought selant traps heavy duty foam,
spent that afternoon plugging up every possible gap I could find.
That night, I stayed out later than usual, bought dinner
in town, lingered over coffee, wandered aisles at the twenty
four Iur grocery store like I needed something important. I
told myself I wasn't scared. I just didn't want to
fall into a routine. But I left every light on
when I got home, pulled the space heater into the
living room, read until almost two, went to bare matters.
Still in the middle of the room, I exactly three
point thirty three, something slammed against the wall behind me. Odd.
I didn't move, didn't breathe just stared at the ceiling,
waiting for whatever was next. The heat hummed from the
living room, the silence pressed in. Then it happened again,
a single heavy band, like a fist from inside the wall.
I rolled over slowly and pressed my ear to the wall. Nothing.
That was the night. I stopped sleeping properly. I started
staying up until morning and crashing for a few hours
after the sun came up. Something about the dark iyres
felt unsafe, like that time of night didn't belong to
me any more. I didn't talk to anyone about it,
didn't even message friends. What would I say? Or round
five one morning, I was rinsing a mug in the
sink when I heard it, the sound that finally broke me.
The back door unlocked, not creaked, matt jiggled unlocked, a clean,
sharp click, followed by the slow turn of the knob.
I froze, muk still in my hand. My heart dropped
so hard I actually felt dizzy. I hadn't touched that
door in daze. The only other key was in the
glove box of my car. I stepped quietly to the
hall and flipped in the porch. Light peered through the window,
No one, nothing, The yard was still unempty. I stood
there for what felt like an iron. Didn't open the door,
didn't turn off the light. When I finally did check it,
the lock looked fine, no scratches, no signs of tempering.
I shoved my cocky into the keyol from the inside,
and left it there. Later that afternoon, I called the landlord,
said I needed to break the lease. Didn't offer a reason,
just said I couldn't stay. He was quiet for a second,
then said, did you leave the back bedroom empty? Like
I told you? I hesitated. I've been using it for storage.
Some one opened boxes, a few coats, nothing big yet,
I said, why, He sighed, just make sure it's locked
before you go. Then he hung up. I didn't wait.
I packed everything into my car that day and left Bunion.
My uncle I cost me if I could look after
his cabin while he and his wife went to visit
her family out in Washington for the week. The place
is up near the edge of her nature reserve in
northern Wisconsin, where the roads to strew dnse trees and
the nearest neighbors about a quarter mile away. I'd been
there a few times growing up, mostly summer weekends with
my parents, but I hadn't seen it in years, never
stayed there alone. Mike handed me the keys a couple
days before they left and said, just grab the mail
and shovel if its noose. It's peaceful up there. You'll
like it, And honestly I did it. First. The first
two days were solid, quiet. I made simple meals, read
in the porch in the afternoon, took a few short
hacks a round the trails near by. But by day
three I started feeling the difference. That evening, i'd just
gotten out of the shower, wrapped in a towel, still
wiping water from my face when I heard the scraping
noise from the kitchen. It wasn't loud, just enough to
catch my attention, like the sound the chair maker when
someone pushes it back from the table. I walked out,
still dripping, half laughing at myself, thinking maybe it was
the window, some pipe knocking against the wall. Everything looked
totally normal, nothing out of place. The chairs were tucked in,
the front door was still locked, and there wasn't even
a draft. I opened the pantry for some reason, like
I expected a rook and to be hiding behind the
flower or something. Nothing. I went back to finish drying off,
but I was more aware now, listening harder, that kind
of alert where your skin feels one size too small.
Ten minutes later, same sound that dragon chairs crape. This
time I came out of the bedroom a little faster.
One of the dining chairs was pushed back from the table,
not far, just a few inches, angled, like someone had
stood up from it and didn't bother to push it
back in all the way. I froze, not because it
was terrifying yet, but because there's this weird moment when
something's just wrong enough to mess with your head but
not enough to act on. I stared at the chair,
trying to figure out if I'd left it like that.
Maybe when I put my bag down, maybe I bumped it.
I'd pushed it back in slowly and stood there a
few seconds longer, just kind of testing the air, like
maybe i'd hear breathing or catch movement out of the
corner of my eye. Not then, just silence, dense, close,
kind of silence. We start to feel like you're intruding.
That night, I left my bedroom door opened a crack.
I don't usually do that. I'm the type who likes
everything shut and locked, but I wanted to hear if
anything moved around at there. Around two, maybe closer to three,
I woke up, not jolted awake, but slowly, like something
had been nudging me toward consciousness. It was the sound mocking,
but not from the front door. This was inside, quick, soft,
two knocks at a time, almost polite. I held still
and listened. There it was again, two knocks, a little louder, closer.
I sat up slowly, every muscle tight, like if I
moved her on something would notice. It sounded like it
was coming from the holy closet, just outside the bedroom.
Two more knocks than nothing. I got up and flipped
the whole light on. The sound stopped. I stared at
the closet door for a while before opening it. Cootz,
an old boot tray, a flashlight, nothing new. I left
the light on and went back to bed, But I
didn't sleep, not really. I just lay there with my
eyes open, listening for the knocking to come back. It didn't.
But the next morning a hallway light was off again.
I know I didn't touch it. That was the first
thing that made me feel watched. I turned it back
on and stood there a while, trying to convince myself
it was a bad switch. Then I saw the boots.
They were sitting by the back door, right where I'd
left them, but they were well, not soaking, but damp
enough to leave a faint ring on the mat. Thing
is I hadn't worn them since the day before, and
I hadn't been outside since mid afternoon. No snow was
tracked in, no puddles, just the boots resting exactly where
I left them. Only now they looked used. I didn't
know what to do with that. I called my aroun
yen and asked if any one else had a key
to the cabin. He laughed, said no, just me and him.
Why he getting scooped up there? I made some vague
joke about weird noises and told him the place of personality.
I didn't bring up the boots. That night, I locked
the bedroom door again and waged a chair under the knob.
I even put a couple of pans near the base
of the door, figuring i'd at least hear them if
someone tried to come in. I didn't care if I
look paranoid. By the fifth night, I started hearing movement
in the attic. It wasn't footsteps exactly, just low, muffled shifting,
like something was dragging itself from one beam to the next.
The attic isn't finished. It's just a crosspis with exposed
beams and some insulation, no storage, nothing you could even
stand up in. But something was up there the axis
panels in the hallway, just a flat piece of wood
that sits flushed with the ceiling. I'd noticed it on
day one and barely gave it a second thought. But
now I was lying in bed, staring at it through
the open door and picturing a face pressing down against
it from the other side. In the morning, I pulled
the steps all up from the shed and pop the
panel up empty. No mice, no ness, no signs of
anything living or ever having lived up there. I poked
around with a broom handle, listened for squeaks of scouring. Nothing.
I somehow felt worse after I checked before, at least
I had none known. Now it was just silence and
the creeping sense that I was looking in the wrong place.
That last night, night six, I couldn't handle staying inside.
I threw on a jacket, built a small fire in
a pit out back, and sat there until the sun
went down. The colt helped, gave me something else to
focus on. But when I came back inside, everything felt different.
The air was heavier, like it had been waiting for me.
The whole way light turned off right as I passed
under it. I stopped, flip the switch. I came back
on thirty seconds later. It clicked off again. That time
I didn't bother fixing it. I went straight to the bedroom,
locked the door, wedged the chair back in place, and
sat down on the edge of the bed. I didn't
even bother changing clothes. Just after midnight, I heard the
front door open. It didn't bind nor creak. It opened smoothly, deliberately,
like some one who knew how to move through that
space without making noise. Then came the footsteps, soft even
crossing the living room, passed the kitchen, heading straight down
the hallway. No pauses, no hesitation, just slow, certain movement,
like they knew where they were going. I sat there
without moving for over an hour. Every now and then
I'd strained to hear breathing or footsteps walking away, but
there was nothing. Just that they had silence, again pressing
into my chest. When I finally opened the door, the
hallway was empty, the front door was closed, and the
boots were gone. The next day, Mike and his wife
pulled up just before noon. I handed him the keys
and told him very calmly that he might want to
check the atted panel. He gave me a look I
couldn't quite read, kind of a half nod, like he
already knew there was something weird about the place, but
didn't want to admit it out loud. I haven't been back.
My cousin Morr and I were living in this soldublex
on the edge of Claremont, a quiet little town in
upstate New York. She had just gotten out of a
messy divorce, and I needed a cheap place while picking
up over night shifts at a grocery store, so we
split rent and moved in together. The unit had been
empty for more than a year before we got it.
The landlord, a guy named mister Hartley, said the last
tenant got weird and left without a word. I worked
nights stocking shelves, so I'd usually get home around one
or two in the morning. When I wasn't working, I
kept to a weird schedule, reading, folding laundry, watching TV
until I crashed. That night, it was maybe three a m.
I was in the caruach folding a load of laundry
when I noticed the basement door was open. I always
kept a hut. It creaked loudly when it moved on
the air that came up from down. The smelled off musty,
a little metallic. I figured Mora had gone down and
just forgot to close it. I walked over to shut it,
but stopped before touching the knob. The hallway light was on,
but the stairs looked too dark. The bottom wasn't visible
at all. It wasn't just shadows. It was like the
light gave up paffrey down, just as thick, dead black
space weather should have been steps. I stood there for
a second, staring at it like an idiot. Then I
told myself to quit being dramatic and shut the door.
A few minutes later I heard the soft scribbing noise
from the kitchen, slow and steady, like something dragging across towel.
I froze for a second, then got up and chet nothing.
The back door was locked, chairs tucked in, every think
was where it should be. I even opened the fridge,
thinking maybe the compress ameter. We'd know it. Snope, just
regular fridge. How I shook it off and went upstairs
or und full thirty I heard it again, the same dragging,
but this time it moved through the hallway toward the
foot of the stairs. I sat up in bed, hard
in my throat, just listening. It stopped. Then I heard
a single creak, like someone putting weight on the bottom step.
I didn't move. Nothing followed, no more steps, no sound
at all. After five minutes, I crept out and leaned
over the banister. The stairwall was empty, but the basement
door it was open again, not wide, just enough for
a sliver of black to show I didn't go down.
I locked my bedroom door, got back in bed, and
stayed there until daylight. The next morning, Mora was already
in the kitchen. First thing she said was did you
go downstairs last night? I told her no. She said
the basement door was wide open when she came down
for coffee. I said, I must have left it ajar.
She gave me a look but didn't push it. Nothing
happened The next night, or the one after. I was
starting to let it go. Then I got off work
late close to two and came home to a quiet house.
Mara was asleep. I made tea and sat on the couch,
flipping for Rubuk. That's when I heard the laundry machine beep.
I hadn't done laundry. I went to the basement door.
It was shut. I stood there for a second, trying
to decide how stupid I was feeling that night, then
opened it slowly and flipped the switch. The light came on,
but half way down the stairs I realized it wasn't
reaching the back of the basement again. Same thing as before,
just this dead zone where the lights stopped working. I
kept going hand on the railing. The air felt heavy
the lower I got cooler too. At the bottom I
saw the washer lit open. Inside was one of my shirts, damp,
stretched and misshapen, like some one had grabbed both sleeves
and tried to pull them in opposite directions. I hadn't
even washed it yet. I closed the lid, backed up
the stairs, shut the door, and locked it. Didn't sleep
that night. After that, things started changing in ways that
were hard to explain. Drawers left half open. My books
were out of order, some flipped upside down, others stacked
differently than I left them. I found a note in
the fridge, in my handwriting that I had see her
memory of writing it just said leave the door shut.
I finally try bringing it up tomorrow. Every time I did,
she brushed it off, said old houses creak were tired.
Maybe one of us forbout something. Until one night I
found her sitting half way down the stairs, staring at
the basement door. It was closed, but she looked frozen,
hale and wired, like she'd been holding her breath. I
asked what happened. She said she heard some one moving
below her room, not walking exactly, circling dragging one foot
like a limp. She thought it was me until she
realized my car wasn't in the driveway. I told her
I was calling some one a priest maybe. She said
not to. Don't make it worse, she said first time,
she admitted she'd been seeing things too. After that, we
made an unspoken deal. No one went down there after Dirk.
That lasted about a week. One night I came home
late and found Mars standing in the open basement doorway.
The light was off. She was just standing there, facing
the dark, like she was waiting for something. I called
her name, nothing. I grouted her shoulder. She jumped so
hard I thought she was going to fall over. Her
whole body was shaking. She said she didn't know how
long she'd been standing there, that she heard some one
say her name and just followed it. We went upstairs.
She cried in my room for almost an hour. The
next morning, the basement light was on again, door wide open.
I shut it, locked it, and pushed a chair against
the knob. That day I stayed home and took out
the lease. Nothing about deaths, no reports, no word history,
but the tenant agreement for the last guy had to
weird gap between his movement and move out dates, so
for six months off. I called mister Hartley and asked
about it. He paused, then said the guy wasn't well
and left without notice, no forwarding address. We packed bags
that afternoon I went to stay with our aunt a
few towns over, just for a couple days, we told ourselves.
Before we left, I went back up stairs to grab
some things from my closet. That shirt, the stretched one
from the washer, was folded neatly on my top shelf,
still damp. Underneath it was a single sheet of paper
or print out I didn't recognize. Across the top at
ree en at Sea basement access records. It listed dates, times, names,
My name showed up three times. The last line just
said pending. We left that night, took what we could carry,
and didn't come back for over a month. When we
finally did, it was to move out. Mister move out.
Hartley didn't ask why, just nodded and said, you're not
the first. Now I won't live anywhere with a basement.
I don't care how nice the place is. Back then,
I was working nights as an intic coordinator at a
long term care facility in rural Kentucky. The building had
a strange history. It used to be a tuberculosis hospital
back in the day. They converted it into a geriatric
rahab center in the early eighties. Slept on some new
pane to put in elevators, but you could still see
where they bricked off the old quarantine wings, lawn, narrow
halways that didn't lead anywhere, dead end doors that looked
like they hadn't been opened in decades. I only lasted
about six months in that job. It wasn't the work itself.
I could handle the paperwork, the late ires, even the
cranky family. That something about that place. It lingered, and
one night in particular still follows me. We had a
resident named Ruth eighty seven. Tiny woman not even five
feet tall, but she carried herself like she owned the building. Sharp, snappy,
and very clearly not interested in making friends. Most of
the stuff gave her a wide berth. She didn't last
out or anything, but she had this way of looking
at you like she already knew your weaknesses and was
just politely choosing not to say them out loud. Her husband, Ellie's,
had died in the facility's hospital when the year before
I started. They'd been sharing a room for almost twenty
years before he passed from a stroke. According to some
of the older nurses, Ruth had barely cried, just sat
by the window for hours after muttering to herself. She
never really stopped talking about him, but it wasn't the
kind of grief people expected. She didn't say she missed
him or wished he was still around. What she kept
repeating over and over in different ways was how he
hadn't rested right, or how he never got to say
good bye. The staff mostly ignored it, just chalked it
up to old age and a bitter personality. That was
the default explanation for anything strange around there. If a
light flickered or someone felt watched, people just said it's
an old building and kept moving anyway. It was a
Thursday night, middle of March, cold and damp, one of
those nights where your bones feel heavier than usual. It
was around two point thirty in the morning when the
five panel by the intake desk lit up false alarm.
Room two hundred fourteen, that was Ruth's room. I was
in the office with Jess, one of the nearest c
naon nights. She was young early twenties, still a little
too chip of for graveyard shifts, but she was kind
and she treated the residence with real patience. When Neil
lam buzzed, we both got up to check it out.
Not unusual. Those panels went off randomly at least once
a week, usually a cens or issue of someone microwaving
something weird. The hallway to the rooms was quiet, no
t beyond, no nurses around, just off its steps and
the soft hum of those overhead fluorescence. When we got
to Root's stores then felt off. Before we even opened it.
The smell hit first, burnt matches, faint but definitely there,
and something else laid underneath, foal powdery, like the kind
of perfume you only smell in antique shops. Already of
Grandma's house. It wasn't strong, just enough to raise your
neck hairs. We stepped in slowly. Ruth was sitting up
in bed. Ramrode straight, not looking at us. Her gaze
was fixed on the recliner in the corner. I asked
Ruth everything all right. She didn't move din blink. Jess
said very clearly, he's been here for a while, just watching.
He wants to talk. Jeff shifted beside me. She tried
that soft seaIn a voice, calm, careful, Ruth, do you
know where you are. It's the middle of the night.
There's no one here but us. Ruth didn't look away
from the chair. That's not true, she said, he was
here before you walked in. That's when the room felt smaller, heavier.
I glanced at the chair, nothing there, just that Warren
Bays recliner every resident had. But Ruth's eyes never left.
I asked if she needed water or help lying back down.
That's when she finally looked at me. Our face was
tired in a way I hadn't seen before. Not angry,
not stubborn, just worn out. He can't rest, she said,
he needs someone to see him, just one person. Then
the recliner creaked. It wasn't loud, more like a breath
of sand, a soft shrift, like someone adjusting their weight
after sitting too long. Jes took a step back. I
saw her hand twitch, fingers flexing like she wasn't sure
whether to gab, mine or bolt. I didn't move, couldn't.
My chest felt tight, like the air had thickened. Ruth's
voice was quiet. Now he died angry blown. They didn't
let me be there, but he's trying again. Then she
nodded slowly toward the chair, like she was giving someone permission.
I told Jess to go get the nose supervisor, something
about having another person. This suddenly felt really necessary. She
didn't argue, just turned and left quickly. I sat down
on the edge of Ruth's bed. I had this whole
thing in my head about how our mind's clean to
familiar shapes when we're grieving, how sometimes we imagine things
to feel less alone. But before I could say anything,
Ruth whispered something I'll never forget. He just wanted to face,
just one person to look at while he laughed. Then
she closed her eyes just like that. I put my
hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle shake. Nothing.
When the nurse arrived, we checked her pulse. Ruth was gone, peacefully,
no signs of pain, no struggle, just gone. Her chart
had flagged her for congestive heart failure, so medically it
wasn't a surprise. But still Jess refused to re enter
the room. She just stood outside, pale as chalk, rubbing
her arms. After they moved Ruth's body I was asked
to pack her belongings and lock them in the inty
closet for her family. The room was silent when I
went back in, still cold, still smelled faintly of smoke
and perfume. I picked up a few of her sweaters,
folded them into bin, and then the recliner shifted again.
That soft creak, the same one. I looked over. The
chair rocked forward slightly, just once, as if some one
had stood up. It shouldn't have moved it all. It
was one of those bulky medical recliners electric, the kind
you operate with the remote. I walked over and checked
a plug. It wasn't even plugged in. I stood there
for a long second. Then I backed out, slowly, shut
the door and said nothing. Didn't even write it up.
Three resident in two hundred fourteen, a woman named Angel.
She didn't even make it one night. By morning she
was demanding a new room. She told the nurse some
one had stood by the chair all night. A man
didn't blink, didn't speak, just watched her. After that they
turned the room into storage. No one wanted it, and
the chair still in there. And that is the end.
Thank you for listening and I will see you in
the next one.